The recount in Broward County, which the Nelson campaign pointed to as key to closing the gap with Scott, was mostly finished after just two hours Friday. Election officials didn't immediately release results, but the speed with which the recount was conducted suggests that the extra votes Nelson was hoping to uncover weren't there. Nelson otherwise captured 69 percent of the vote in Broward.

Broward election officials said they would not release hand recount results until they report them to the state Sunday.

State elections laws — rewritten following the 2000 presidential recount fiasco — mandate a hand review of certain ballots when machine recounts show a margin within 0.25 percentage points.

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Hilary Sue (right), of Stuart, a poll watcher for several counties, holds a Rick Scott for Senate campaign sign outside the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, as the recount continues inside under Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

The machine recount of Midterm Elections ballots, under the direction of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, takes place Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Riviera Beach. A manual recount of some of the ballots is scheduled for Friday morning. XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM

Absent a further legal challenge from Gillum, DeSantis will be the state's next governor.

Across the Sunshine State's 67 counties, a small army of election workers and volunteers — under the watchful eyes of lawyers and observers from both parties — are examining ballots that recorded either no or too many votes in the two close races.

There are about 93,000 such ballots statewide to examine, according to the Associated Press. The deadline to submit results to the state is noon Sunday.

Election officials can still receive overseas ballots through today, as long as they were postmarked by election day. A court ruling is still awaited on a request by Democrats to allow domestic absentee ballots to be counted if they were also received late but were postmarked by election day.

A hand recount doesn't mean that election officials look at each of the more than 8 million ballots cast in the state. Instead, they are examining ballots that tabulation machines said had "overvotes" or "undervotes" in the contested races.

An overvote occurs when the tabulating machine believes a voter cast more than one vote in a certain race. In some cases, voters do fill out more than one bubble for a race. Such "true" overvotes are not counted.

But sometimes a stray pen mark or other voter error can cause the tabulation machines to register an overvote. In such cases, where the voter intent is clear from ballot to election officials, the vote is counted.

"You are trying to figure if it was an intentional overvote, or if you can divine the intention of the voter," said George Levesque, a lawyer with Gray Robinson's Tallahassee office who works on election issues.

Similarly, an undervote is when a tabulation machine says no vote was registered in a race. Voters sometimes decide not to vote in certain races, perhaps because they feel they don't know enough about the candidates.

The Nelson campaign has pointed to some 25,000 "undervotes" in Broward County as something that could flip early election results. Nelson otherwise captured 69 percent of the vote in the heavily Democratic county.

True undervotes do happen, but rarely in such high-profile races. In fact, the first race to appear on a ballot — in this case, the Senate race — generally draws the highest number of votes.

Nelson's lead lawyer, Marc Elias, had pointed to the possibility of machine error as a cause of the missing votes. But if that were the case, the machine recount should have rectified that.

A second — and now seemingly more likely — possibility is the way the ballot was designed caused thousands of voters to overlook the Senate race.

The Senate race was the first one on the ballot and appeared in the lower left corner of the ballot just below the voting instructions. Many voters could have skipped over the Senate race thinking it was part of the instructions and proceeded directly to the governor's race, which was at the top of the center column of the ballot.

If that were the case, Nelson would have a much harder time closing the gap with Scott.

Elias continued to point to machine error and said he expected the hand recount to reveal that thousands of people actually did cast votes in that race.

Officials in Broward relied on a color-coded system to tally some of the last ballots by hand.

Ballots with clear votes for Republican Gov. Rick Scott went into a bin with a red tag. Clear votes for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson went into one with a blue tag. Blank ballots went into a bin with a yellow tag. Anything that needed further examination by the canvassing board was dropped into one with a green tag.

Dozens of volunteers sitting behind the bins stacked on folding tables in a Broward County warehouse cheered loudly when they finished their hand recount Friday morning. Results were not immediately announced.

The speed with which Broward completed the recount suggests that most of the ballots showed no markings at all and required no further examination.

As of Friday afternoon, the canvassing board was still reviewing an unknown number of odd ballots.

One example: A ballot where the voter just filled in the “D” in the "DEM" next to Nelson's name, but did not fill in the bubble itself. The canvassing board ruled the vote invalid over the objections of Nelson's representative.

And, as happens every election in Florida, there was at least one write-in vote for "Mickey Mouse."

Contributing: Sarah Jarvis of the Fort Myers News-Press in Broward County and The Associated Press

Contact McCarthy at jmccarthy@floridatoday.com or 321-752-5018

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With voting recounts in full swing, you might be worried that your ballot got lost in the action of it all. Here's how you can check to see if your vote was counted. GINNY BEAGAN/TCPALM
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Baby Lola who is 8 months old is seen with an "I voted" sticker during the mid-term elections beside the beach at the Venice Beach Lifeguard station in California on November 6, 2018. - Americans started voting Tuesday in critical midterm elections that mark the first major voter test of US President Donald Trump's controversial presidency, with control of Congress at stake. MARK RALSTON, AFP/Getty Images

Alisha Nelson, of West Allis proudly holds her I Voted sticker after voting at West Allis Central High School. Citizens cast their vote for the midterm election on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Madison County voting bailiff Billy Swindle, right, hands out an "I voted" sticker, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018 in Ridgeland, Miss. Voters have a number of races to consider, including judiciary and federal offices and some local issues. Rogelio V. Solis, AP

A roll of stickers sits on a table o be handed out by election judges as voters deposit their ballots at the Denver Elections Division drop off location in front of the City/County Building Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Denver. David Zalubowski, AP

An "I Voted" sticker in seen during early voting for the mid-term elections at a public library in the Lake View Terrace neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on November 4, 2018. ROBYN BECK, AFP/Getty Images

Stickers at the Guernsey County Senior Center polling location on November 6, 2018 in Cambridge, Ohio. Turnout is expected to be high nationwide as Democrats hope to take back control of at least one chamber of Congress. Justin Merriman, Getty Images

Drake University student Camryn Kubicki applies a sticker to her hat after voting at a polling station on November 6, 2018 in Des Moines, Iowa. Today's election will determine if Republicans or Democrats will control the House of Representatives. Joshua Lott, Getty Images